The weather this week is supposed to be pretty incredible and our neighbors - constant playmates around here - are out of town all week so I decided it would be a good time to get out and do some fun stuff.  When I told the kids that this week we are going to explore Kansas City, they mostly reacted with varying degrees of skepticism.  Hopefully our wonderful town will exceed their expectations.  Today we hit up the streetcar route and explored several areas of the city.

The Liberty Memorial was lovely, minus the part about having to stop every two minutes for Rose to clean pebbles/grass/sticks/whatever out of her shoes.

We ate lunch at Kansas City Taco Company, which was fabulous.  We all loved what we got, but I'm pretty certain that my watermelon mojito and my bulgogi tacos were the best.

Emma wanted to go see these murals because apparently they are all the rage with almost-8th graders on instagram.

Allie and Rose both wanted to be first to get their picture taken with the angel wings, and they were not as amused as I was when I pointed out the irony of their fighting and shoving each other to be the first to look like an angel.

By the time we got back to Union Station, we were starting to get a little weary, but we couldn't resist a quick stop in the train room, which is always totally worth it.

On the way home, we stopped for ice cream in Westport, and as we were eating, I happened to notice Allie's foot.  She definitely took a shower this morning before we left the house.  How is it possible to get the TOP of one's foot this dirty in a matter of hours?

Filthy feet aside, I'd say our first day out on the town was a success!

Well, hello again.

After at least four years of only taking pictures with my iPhone, I recently purchased a new camera! Yay!  It's wonderful and I love it, except I quickly realized that it's more fun to take pictures if I can actually share them with someone instead of just burying them somewhere in the cloud, never to be seen again.  Hence, my attempt to resurrect this old blog.  We will see how this goes, but for now, I have high hopes.

A little update on us...

This sweet girl is - and I still can hardly believe this - thirteen years old.  A teenager!  She will be going in to eighth grade this year.  Emma is really into artsy stuff and she also likes to swim and dawdle when it's time to go to bed.

This fellow is ten years old.  Noah is a delight, and also likes to swim, play baseball and football, and pester his sisters.

Allie is eight now.  She swims too, and is smart and friendly and doesn't like to eat food.

And, surprise, we had another baby!  Except that baby turned four last week so she isn't much of a  baby at all anymore.  Rose just learned to swim and she loves Play-Doh and princesses and bossing people around.

So, that's the super-short update on us.  I've been sitting here waffling over whether or not I should publish this, because what if I actually never blog again, and then how silly would I look?  But, here it goes, and hopefully that won't be the case!